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Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Interlude - The Lord rewards his faithful servants

Housekeeping note - day off today. After a hard day's anti-Islamist activity on the interweb yesterday I'm taking a breather to thank God for his manifold gifts today. Ten days ago the last patches of snow had just disappeared, and in no time at all the most gorgeous, delicate wild spring flowers had appeared on the meadows and in the stream bed, comic and delightful little wall lizards scampered along the sun drenched south facing walls and today a venerable Fire Salamander made his majestic way around my morning coffee on the way to his breakfast. They can live for up to 50 years, though no idea how one ages them. And not to mention the tits and finches who fill the morning air with chirps of delight at just being alive, or the plaintive 'Meoew' of the Buzzard overhead looking for exposed chickens to take, or the singing of the little bach as it trills and falls down toward the valley below. Oh, and the new roof is going on. Truly our Europe is a continent of holy wonder. May you all have a peaceful and glorious day.

Ah, 30 years in London they never stopped calling me Suffolk Boy and now I'm back doing what I loved doing in the late '70s (but now with more land money and house) I'll forever be City Boy. Sigh.

The bloody foxes here are lacking the sophistication of our London Reynards, though; I am parking my car on the cart track to the barn at the mo during the roofing and it's on a fox patrol route. A London fox would just go around the car without being bothered - but what do I find here? Bloody muddy fox tracks going over the bonnet, the roof and jumping off the nearside quarter, the creature not deviating from his usual route by a centimetre.

The Asparagus season is just getting into swing. A couple of nightly visits to his chosen route and we'll see which of us deposits the most pungent scent ....

(Shooting him not an option. You can own as many shotguns and rifles as you like here and as many thousand rounds of ammo as keep you happy without restriction - but you can't actually shoot anything with them. Not even a rabbit on your own land. Not unless you're a state certified Hunter.)

"Ah, 30 years in London they never stopped calling me Suffolk Boy and now I'm back doing what I loved doing in the late '70s (but now with more land money and house) I'll forever be City Boy. Sigh."

Aye! but no tears, you can take the boy out of the bucolic but he never, never forgets what lies in his heart, in his bones, and place of birth. I do recognize, I know that sort of feeling, Londoners never will let it go - my accent and its harshly flat northern vowelled growl - sometimes I wish for the much more pianissimo Saxon burr, proudly I can relate, that, the line of my forefathers, cameth from Saxon stock. I do honestly miss the REAL Cockneys though, now that, they've all but gone, I used to feel that London was still 'my town' and 'my capital' - no longer, when I'm in the 'Smoke' - do I get that comforting sense of still belonging. About Reynard, the vulpine visitor, I recommend an Austro-Hungarian breed of hunting dog but then, I think we may have already touched on this conversation matey!

Have a beer, put up your feet, satisfied, breathe deep the air, watch and hear the birds in song, relax and thank God you're out of London - I know that you do, Gods speed.

Ravenscar: "Aye! but no tears, you can take the boy out of the bucolic but he never, never forgets what lies in his heart, in his bones, and place of birth." Tha's allas reight, Lad! It's t'same for't lasses, an' all.

You're right about London also. It's a few decades since I began to resent alien presences there, and promptly told mysen off about it. "It's not a very nice reaction," I said; and others agreed with me.

So now we know: it was the right reaction. The tragedy that comes of relinquishing our ancient heritage to insidious invaders has only begun to rear up in its true colours.

How could the nation be so oblivious of the work, sacrifice, and wisdom of our ancestors -- and of the land that is part of each one, body and soul.

"So now we know: it was the right reaction. The tragedy that comes of relinquishing our ancient heritage to insidious invaders has only begun to rear up in its true colours.

How could the nation be so oblivious of the work, sacrifice, and wisdom of our ancestors -- and of the land that is part of each one, body and soul."

That is, rather well put.

I find that, I have no ready answer to it and reflect on, it all got too comfy, eye off the ball - cliches abound. It is not nostalgia but anger, though achingly, regretful of, trashing culture, history, a heritage which was not ours to attempt to meddle with and in the abominable realization that, we are not able to bequeath it to future generations. Though, for a generation past, the life sap of the nation, and the youthful English diaspora have voted with their feet.

It was not ours but we were for a while, 'the keepers' or curators if you like and we will be and forever, perhaps deservedly so stigmatized for allowing, turning a blind eye to - the Cultural Marxists who helped raze it.

I don't miss the real cockneys - I never really met any, despite being born almost in their traditional area (Bow Bells - not quite, but Stratford Broadway, certainly).

But I do miss the genuine rural Essex accent, rare when I was growing up, probably extinct now. You could hear it in certain pubs (let's hear it for Ridley's, now sadly taken over and squashed by the regional behemoth!) and in various remote coastal villages - Goldhanger and suchlike places.

But I grow nostalgic.

Radders I hope that house of yours is well separated from the hillside behind, and that the drainage there is all in order. I'm sure an old construction hand like you will have seen to such matters. Otherwise dampness you will have...I've got that t-shirt too.

WY - I always liked Hollinshead's description of the inhabitants of Essex as 'half East Anglian and half Human'

And yes, there's an existing 2' wide 'moat' behind and parallel to the rear wall, to be cleaned out and filled with foamed glass and with a new bottom drain, and all that nasty Portland cement render that stops the walls breathing is coming off and 160mm of nice vapour permeable rockwool EWI going on ...

Congratulations on your move Raedwald, it must be very gratifying to be able to start your renovations now that the weather is amenable to outside work.

Having a bit of a construction background myself, I would like to caution you on the use of exterior insulation systems and wildlife.

As it happens I was looking for a new house last summer and viewed a very nice home, in a gorgeous location, at a seemingly reasonable price - something very amiss there! On closer inspection this home had an exterior insulation system that was wearing well in our extreme climate, however it seems that neighbourhood birdlife had also discovered the comfort and warmth provided therein and had burrowed cavities at the junction of the wall and eaves. It reminded me very much of the old thatch roofs, except in this case the birds were nesting in the wallspace. The insulation was protected by only a thin scrim of stucco on fibreglass mesh, no match for persistent sharp beaks.

LURVE the salamander.Here Spring is well in advance, As one would expect.Peacock, small Tort & White butterflies are out, found a Toad in my greenhouse, the Newts in the pond are obviously happy & my first (greenhouse-sown-in-pots) beans are sprouting ....